Penn State made strides forward on the Madison, Wisconsin Cross Country course at the Big Ten Championships. Both the Men and Women had performances that matched their best in several years. Both performed better than their pre-race predicted finishes.
The women finished 4th with 3 attaining All-Big Ten honors:
The Men placed 6th with Evan Dorenkamp placing 17th
3 First team All-Americans for the Nittany Lion Men in 2023!
And again, the Nittany Lions chose the "Alumni-Singlet like" tops for the events on the Final Day! This is always great and appreciated by us old-timers. The singlets were originally invented by Dennis Pollow and have taken off in a big way.
Quick Poll: Do the Alumni Singlets improve the performance of wearers?
Penn State showed up in fine shape for the return of the Penn Relays 4 x 800M Championships of America. The Women showed everyone what they can do at the big meets by winning the race in splendid fashion. Ohio State put up a good fight, but the deep Lady Lions prevailed in 8:24.49. I am trying to verify the actual order of athletes, but Rachel Gearing, Allison Johnson, Victoria Tachinski and Victoria Vanrielle Victoria Vanriele (2:08.37), Rachel Gearing (2:04.27), Madaline Ullom (2:06.92), and Victoria Tachinski (2:04.95)were listed. This was PSU's second wheel of the meet! (with the Sprint Medley Relay on Friday, another fine performance for 800U) Madeline Ullom is an Ohio hs star coached by teammate Tom Rapp!
Splits in reverse order were: 2:08.37 / 2:04.27 / 2:06.92 / 2:04.95
The Men followed that up with a second place finish to the overwhelming favorite Ole Miss. They were rumored to be eyeing the Penn Relays Record of 7:11.17 of the 1985 Penn State squad, but came up short. Two members of that 85 squad were in the stands enjoying the Carnival; Steve Shisler and Vance Watson. PSU ran to a fine 7:17.86 time, a time that has won quite a few Championships in the past. Listed as running were Olivier Desmeules, Darius Smallwood, Evan Dorenkamp, and Domenic Perretta. Yukichi Ishii, Olivier Desmeules, Darius Smallwood and Domenic Perretta
Splits in reverse order were: 1:48.85 / 1:49.98 / 1:48.67 / 1:50.37
First, Brannon Kidder didn't run in the USATF Championships. So he found himself running the Mile at the Boston University Last Chance Meet. There were fireworks aplenty in the race as Josh Kerr set the British Indoor Record and 2 Oregon chaps ran under 3:55. That places Evan Dorenkamp near the cut-off to make the Mile at the NCAA Championships! Fingers crossed.
Brannon ran 3:54.91. Is that the Alumni Record? The Interns are useless.
| 5 | KIDDER, Brannon | Brooks Beasts | 3:54.91 |
|
And Isaiah Harris made his second World Team by placing 2nd to Bryce Hoppel in the 800M at the USATF Championships! Congrats Isaiah.
I haven't been able to get to any meets yet this year, but there are some interesting things happening already with the teams and alums.
Evan Dorenkamp took the Mens victory as the Men placed second and the Women placed fourth with Freshmen Sophia Toti and Madeline Ullom leading them in 16th and 17th place.
The Nittany Lions will have 7 representatives at the upcoming championships at the renovated Hayward Field. A modicum of attendees will be there. Mark "Beef" Heckel, Blue Band Captain, Track Alumni (Golfer) and heralded Throws Official may throw us a bone or two when not busy!
21 Evan Dorenkamp FR 800M 1:49.114 David Lucas SR Discus 60.77m12 Tyler Merkley SO Hammer 67.47m13 Mark Porter JR Javelin 70.22m20 Noah Swaby SO Decathlon 751711 Danae Rivers SR 1500M 4:12.817 Madeline Nickal (Holmberg) SR Heptathlon 5839
And don't forget to get your entries in for this year's Reunion. You can do it the old fashioned way by sending the monies in to Harry Smith or to me via PayPal on the top of the full web site! Not available yet on the handheld site or via the Facebook Page. The Interns will get around to it.
1972 Olympic Gold and Silver Medalists Dave Wottle and Yevgeni Arzhanov struck up a nice friendship following their incredible race. My hopes for America's future can be symbolized with this photo. Photo thanks to Yevgeni.
And right on cue, the most notable result from the opening meet of 2021 was Evan Dorenkamp's superb Mile in 4:01.91. He was paced by fellow 800U runners Dominic Perretta (1:59.53 809M) and Will Ashenfelter (3:05.10 1209M). He followed them and accelerated to the win for a 7 second PR.
Web Site Idiot and Herder of Cats
